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On this day: December 2

Posted: Dec 01, 2016 11:13 PM PST

Updated: Dec 01, 2017 11:05 PM PST

On this day: December 2

Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images

2016: A fire breaks out at an Oakland, California, warehouse known as the Ghost Ship, killing 36 people. The warehouse had been converted into an area for artists and included living units. While emails from 2014 reportedly described serious electrical problems in the building, investigators were unable to pinpoint the cause of the fire due to the extreme damage to the building. In June 2017, two Ghost Ship proprietors were arrested and charged with felony involuntary manslaughter in connection with the fire.
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Clonmel Junction Festival via Wikimedia Commons

2008: Odetta, the singer-songwriter, guitarist and actress often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement," dies of heart disease at age 77 in New York City. Odetta, whose full name was Odetta Holmes, helped revive American folk music in the 1950s and served as an influence for artists such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mavis Staples and Janis Joplin. She seen here at a music festiaval in July 2006.
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1993: NASA launches the space shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. With its very heavy workload, the STS-61 mission was one of the most complex in the space shuttle program's history, lasting nearly 11 days, and crew members made five spacewalks, an all-time record.
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CBS Television via Wikimedia Commons

1990: Aaron Copland, one of the most respected American classical composers of the 20th century, dies of Alzheimer's disease and respiratory failure at age 90 in North Tarrytown, New York. Some of his best known works include the ballets "Appalachian Spring," "Billy the Kid" and "Rodeo," his "Fanfare for the Common Man" and "Third Symphony." He also composed for film, earning an Oscar for William Wyler's 1949 film "The Heiress" and additional nominations for his scores to "Of Mice and Men," "Our Town" and "The North Star."
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1988: Benazir Bhutto is sworn in as prime minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of an Islam-dominated state. Bhutto, seen here during a state visit to Washington, D.C., in 1989, would serve until 1990 and be elected again in 1993. After nine years of self-exile in Dubai and London, she returned to Pakistan in October 2007 to run again for prime minister, but was assassinated two months later.
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Ford Motor Company via Wikimedia Commons

1986: Cuban-born American musician, actor and television producer Desi Arnaz, best known for starring as Ricky Ricardo alongside his wife Lucille Ball on the 1950s sitcom "I Love Lucy," dies of lung cancer at age 69 in Del Mar, California.
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Dylan Buell/Getty Images

1983: Quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who led the Green Bay Packers to a championship in Super Bowl XLV after the 2010 season, is born in Chico, California. Rodgers, who began his NFL career backing up Brett Favre for three seasons before becoming a starter in 2008, was named the MVP of Super Bowl XLV and the 2011 NFL MVP.
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AVRO via Wikimedia Commons

1982: English comedian and actor Marty Feldman, best known for his roles in Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein" and "Silent Movie," dies of a heart attack at age 48 in Mexico City.
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NHLBI via Wikimedia Commons

1982: Barney Clark becomes the world's first recipient of a permanent artificial heart, the Jarvik-7, in a surgery performed at the University of Utah Medical Center. The surgery was performed by Dr. William DeVries in cooperation with the device's inventor, Dr. Robert Jarvik. Clark, a dentist from Seattle who was suffering from severe congestive heart failure, would live 112 days on the artificial heart. Of the next four implants, the longest survivor was William Schroeder, who lived 620 days.
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David Becker/Getty Images

1981: Singer-songwriter, dancer and actress Britney Spears, best known for hit songs such as "...Baby One More Time," "Oops!... I Did It Again," "Stronger," "Toxic" and "Womanizer," is born in McComb, Mississippi.
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Jason Kempin/Getty Images

1978: Singer-songwriter Nelly Furtado, whose hit songs include "I'm like a Bird," "Promiscuous" and "Say It Right," is born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
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Marcelo Montecino via Wikimedia Commons

1976: Fidel Castro becomes president of Cuba, replacing Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado. He would serve as Cuban president until failing health forced him to transfer his responsibilities to his brother, Vice President Raúl Castro, in 2006. His brother formally assumed the presidency in 2008 and Fidel Castro died on Nov. 25, 2016.
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Stacey Warnke via Wikimedia Commons

1973: Monica Seles, the former world no. 1 professional tennis player and a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, is born in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, current-day Serbia. In 1990, Seles became the youngest-ever French Open champion at age 16. She went on to win seven more Grand Slam singles titles before her 20th birthday and ranked No. 1 in the world at the end of 1991 and 1992. Her career was derailed after an on-court attack on April 30, 1993, when she was stabbed in the back, but she returned to tennis after two years, eventually winning the Australian Open in 1996 and earning a bronze medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics. Seles, who's seen here in 2011, played her last professional match at the 2003 French Open and officially retired in early 2008.
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EPA via Wikimedia Commons

1970: The United States Environmental Protection Agency is formed after President Richard Nixon signs an executive order.
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Georges Biard via Wikimedia Commons

1968: Actress Lucy Liu, best known for her TV work in "Ally McBeal" and "Elementary" and for movies such as "Charlie's Angels," "Chicago," "Kill Bill" and "Kung Fu Panda," is born in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York.
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Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsc-03256

1961: In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba is going to adopt Communism.
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Vgenecr from nl via Wikimedia Commons

1956: Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and 80 other members of the 26th of July Movement disembark the Granma yacht after it reached the shores of Cuba's Oriente province to initiate the Cuban Revolution. Since 1976, the yacht has been on permanent display in a glass enclosure at the Granma Memorial adjacent to the Museum of the Revolution in Havana.
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United Press via Wikimedia Commons

1954: The U.S. Senate votes 67 to 22 to censure Sen. Joseph McCarthy for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute."
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Department of Energy via National Archives

1942: During the Manhattan Project, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in a reactor built under the stands of Stagg Field on the University of Chicago campus. Pictured is a drawing of the reactor, which consisted of uranium and uranium oxide lumps spaced in a cubic lattice embedded in graphite.
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Vernon Louis Meyer via Wikimedia Commons

1927: After more than 18 years of Ford Model T production, the Ford Motor Company begins selling the Ford Model A as its new automobile. By February 1929, more than 1 million Model A's had been sold, which jumped to 2 million by the end of July 1929.
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iStock/francisblack

1909: The National Hockey Association forms with four teams: the Montreal Wanderers, the Renfrew Creamery Kings, the Cobalt Silver Kings and the Haileybury Hockey Club. The Canadian league was the direct predecessor organization to today's NHL, which was formed in 1917 as a way for most of the NHA team owners to get rid of an unwanted owner.
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John Bowles via Wikimedia Commons

1859: Militant abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his Oct. 16, 1859, raid on a federal armory at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. Brown, who had hoped to start an armed slave revolt, and his raiders were initially successful in capturing the armory, but were defeated two days later by a detachment of U.S. Marines led by Col. Robert E. Lee.
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Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

1859: Georges Seurat, the Post-Impressionist painter and draftsman known for his innovative use of drawing media and for devising the technique of painting known as pointillism, is born in Paris, France. Seurat's "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" is one of the icons of late 19th-century painting.
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Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

1823: During his State of the Union Address to the U.S. Congress, President James Monroe states that any further efforts by European nations to colonize land or interfere with North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression. At the same time, Monroe also established that America would remain neutral in future European conflicts. The speech set what would eventually become known as the Monroe Doctrine.
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Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo via Wikimedia Commons

1814: French politician and philosopher Marquis de Sade dies at age 74 in a lunatic asylum in Charenton, Val-de-Marne, France. De Sade was famous for his libertine sexuality and is best known for his erotic works, which combined philosophical discourse with pornography. He spent much of his life in various prisons and the Charenton insane asylum. The words "sadism" and "sadist" are derived from his name.
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Jacques-Louis David via Wikimedia Commons

1804: At Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Pope Pius VII crowns Napoleon Bonaparte as emperor of the French, the first French emperor in a thousand years. Napoleon then crowned his wife Joséphine as empress.
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